Tag Archives: indigenous

Wake up from Disconnection

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What is embodiment, and how can we deepen our embodied experience? These fundamental questions have fascinated me for decades. I was curious to know what other people thought about them, so I invited some key thinkers and practitioners to explore them on my podcast. I planned to do one episode, but the subject proved so compelling that it became three. A wide range of perspectives are represented: academia, coaching, embodied practice, activism, environmentalism, mental health, life and death.

A key theme for me, and a personal fascination, is how interwoven we are as embodied beings. This theme resonates with many of us, as our culture often encourages a sense of being disembodied. We are dangerously out of touch with our embodiment, and several contributors agree that that is the root of many crises we face.

Glen Mazis, a Merleau-Ponty scholar and a published poet, expresses concern about the prevalence of a ‘disembodied culture’ that prioritizes mental manipulation over connections with others and the environment. Charlene Spretnak, a co-founder of Ecofeminism, highlights the “extraordinarily relational nature of being”.

In the latest episode, I speak to three Indigenous spiritual leaders and hear that theme again:

“We are not separated from nature, we are nature”, and yet “we are very disconnected from this consciousness, this awareness”.

Shaneihu Yawanawá

Albert Einstein wrote much the same:
“A human being is a spatially and temporally limited piece of the whole, what we call the “Universe.” He experiences himself and his feelings as separate from the rest, an optical illusion of his consciousness” (1950).

One of our most brilliant scientists confirms the wisdom of ancient Indigenous cultures, philosophers, artists, embodiment practitioners, activists and spiritual leaders!

And yet, as Plant Medicine guide Wachan Bajiyoperak says, “We are sleeping deeply”. The message here is clear: Although we are nature, we’re caught in an optical illusion of disconnection. I do not doubt this illusion will destroy us if we fail to feel our way out of it.

As Glen Mazis says, “you can have all the concerns you want about global warming and its effect on the economy and all its other dangerous effects. But if you don’t feel the connection to the environment, if you don’t feel the wonder of the trees that are blowing in the wind out my window, or you don’t feel the wonder of the plants and the earth and all these other things or the creatures around us, you’re trying to make up for some deficit that you’ll never be able to make up. And we’ll never really care for the earth in the way we should”.

So what do we do? The solution is both simple and oddly challenging. Martika Gomez explains that we have to build a deeper relationship with Mother Earth, and we begin to do that when “we give back to her in a symbolic way, just to have that connection, to honour you know, to know that she’s alive, and that the waters, the rivers are alive. When we give an offering of love with that consciousness, that we are having that relationship, we’re respecting it, the world will be so different, you know, we wouldn’t have all the problems we’re facing right now”.

Philip Shepherd says something closely related:


“what the body most deeply feels is the present. It feels the earth, it feels the breeze, it feels the sounds, it feels the world around it as it is unfolding in this moment. And I think what the body most deeply realizes is that everything is alive”.

Our culture finds this hard to grasp because it’s caught up in the illusion of disconnection: We can’t escape the illusion because it stops us from seeing the way out!

But everyone I’ve interviewed talks about pathways of connection: mindfulness, dance, interoception, psychedelics, ceremony, nature connection, and Focusing. These practices offer a pathway from the illusion of disconnection to a new but ancient consciousness. All you need to do is start.

I leave the last word to Shaneihu Yawanawá:

“This is a very good moment for us to awake … everyone can contribute to this transition. There’s no excuse. Everyone needs to do her or his part”.

All episodes are available on podcast apps and the Embodied Pathways podcast.

Ecotherapy and psychedelic experience

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Many indigenous peoples have an ancient tradition of healing with psychedelics. Best known perhaps are the Mazatec, who conduct ceremonies with psilocybin mushrooms, and the indigenous peoples of the Amazon basin, who draw on the healing power of ayahuasca.

In every case, these healers hold the psychedelic experience within two containers or baskets. Ritual is fundamental and forms the inner basket. The healing ritual is itself held within a broader basket of a culture and community that’s seamlessly integrated into the natural world. In the West, we tend to overemphasise the psychoactive substance itself, but these two holding baskets cannot be separated from the healing power of indigenous psychedelic journeys.

The importance of set and setting is fairly familiar in the West: Your state of mind (mindset) and the location you’re in have a huge impact on any psychedelic experience. In most cases, less attention is paid to preparing for and integrating the psychedelic journey. Because indigenous psychedelic work is held within the two baskets, preparation, set, setting and integration are seamless aspects of the whole process.

It’s sadly no surprise that the Western pattern of using psychedelics is usually fractured and piecemeal. We’ve applied our usual pattern of taking those aspects we find most exciting and ignoring the deeper context. I suspect that was part of the reason why the ‘60’s psychedelic revolution went wrong: Leary’s injunction to ‘turn on, tune in and drop out’ lacked a strong holding container.

We may be at the start of a psychedelic renaissance, and it’s vital that we learn from past mistakes and the wisdom of indigenous healers. In the West, we’re pretty good at ritual, and a decent psychedelic guide will provide a simple ceremony to support a journey. But our connection with nature is often neglected. Kile Ortigo’s recent book on psychedelic integration (2021) barely mentions nature. However, a paper on the same subject by Sam Gandy and colleagues (2020) notes that “Spending time in nature may be one of the most effective practices for maintaining the benefits of psychedelic sessions”.

I don’t think it’s appropriate for our dysfunctional but dominant culture to try to copy – which is nice way to say ‘appropriate’ – indigenous practices. We need to find our own way, and ecotherapy provides an ideal framework to rediscover nature connection. Ecotherapy can play a crucial role in how we manage the power of psychedelic experiences and I’m exploring ways in which it can serve as part of the holding basket for psychedelic healing. This isn’t straightforward, as psychedelics are illegal almost everywhere. But it is vital if the much-hyped ‘psychedelic renaissance is going to be more than another failed experiment.

This post draws on my research for the Synthesis Institute, notably their pioneering Psychedelic Practitioner Training.

How to manage the psychedelic revolution

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The media is full of news about psychedelic therapy this week. There’s the opening of the new Awakn clinic in Bristol, which uses Ketamine to support psychotherapy for depression, anxiety and addiction. Another organization – Small Pharma – are trialing DMT in the UK as a treatment for people with depression. In the USA, Oregon has decriminalized all drugs and Washington D.C. now permits the cultivation and possession of “entheogenic plants and fungi.” It’s perhaps no exaggeration to say that we are at the start of a revolution and things have moved fast since I wondered if psychedelic psychotherapy might be the next big thing in psychiatry a mere 18 months ago.

You’d be forgiven if you have a deja vu feeling about all this; back in the 60’s Timothy Leary and others were proclaiming a psychedelic revolution. Sadly it all went badly wrong, as revolutions so often do. What happened back then and can we learn from the mistakes of those excited pioneers? The main problem was that there was no context for psychedelic experience. Many indigenous cultures have been drawing on the healing power of psychedelics for generations and they provide a supportive context to hold the experience. It’s not simply ‘Tune on, tune in and drop out’!

Context is vital at several levels. Stan Grof, a leading thinker in the field, suggested that psychedelics are “non-specific mental amplifiers of the psyche” (2000), which means that the location and your mindset are key. The psychedelic experience needs to take place in a carefully managed setting and ideally with someone who is there to support you. Most people who work with psychedelics know about set and setting, but there’s a larger context that’s sometimes neglected. Preparation for the experience can make a huge difference and integration afterwards can unpack the deeper significance of the journey. Without integration it’s too easy to miss the potentially life changing lessons of your psychedelic experience. Then there’s the wider social context. You’ve had this extraordinary experience that may well have been mystical in it’s profundity. How do you take that into the rest of your life? Do you have friends or a mentor who understands and supports you? Does your culture affirm or dismiss your experience? While many indigenous peoples have all of these levels of support integrated into the culture, Western Postmodernism most certainly doesn’t!

The good news is that there are organizations and individuals working to create these supportive contexts. There’s a lot to learn but we’re drawing on cutting edge scientific research and, with deep respect, indigenous wisdom. I’ve recently started working as the Director of Ecopsychology at the Synthesis Institute. Synthesis have been running psychedelic retreats in The Netherlands for several years and are now exploring a new approach to help manage depression. My role is to bring the powerful holding and healing of the natural world to this work. Ecopsychology has a lot of offer, especially with preparation and integration but this potential has been largely untapped. Although a special issue of the European Journal of Ecopsychology on the psychedelic experience came out in 2013, it was before the current renaissance in psychedelic therapy.

Psychedelic therapy is complex and requires an interdisciplinary approach that’s very unfamiliar for Western medicine. We need new frameworks, and it’s notable that the psychedelic experience and nature connectedness are two of the embodied pathways of connection; perhaps the EPoC model can help inform the way forward?

So it’s exciting and challenging times! We have a wealth of wisdom and research to draw on as we negotiate this journey. With the revolution well underway, I believe our community can rise to the challenge of creating a holding context for what may be the most powerful experience someone will ever have.

Pinakarri: Aboriginal deep listening

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‘White Fella Dreaming’ writes about Pinakarri, a practice from the Aboriginal Mandjilidjara Mardu people of Western Australia. Pinakarri literally means “ears standing up” and is usually translated as ‘deep listening’, a listening with the whole bodymind. It struck me because of the similarities with practices I’m familiar with from ecopsychology, spirituality and therapy.

This is a slightly edited version of the guide to Pinakarri from White Fella Dreaming:

  1. Sit quietly and sense where your body connects with whatever is supporting you right now; the ground, chair or cushion.
  2. Feel the weight of your body and notice how the earth supports it. No matter what you are sitting in, it is made of earth in one way or the other. The gravity that holds you there was created with the beginning of the Universe.
  3. Become aware of your breath. Listen to the difference between the in breath and the out breath. This is how the Universe sounds when it sings through your body.
  4. Become aware of the slight difference in temperature between the in and out breaths. This difference is what you give to the act of breathing. The heat involved in that change comes from the Sun. It is warming up life through your body and you are a channel for this process. You embody the energy of the Sun. You are completely unique and absolutely universal at the same time.
  5. Now listen to the beat of your heart. This began in the womb and stays with you until death. It beats out a particular rhythm and sound.
  6. Find the first point of tension you become aware of. Breathe into that spot and consciously relax it with the power of the Sun and the universal energy you are now aware of. Breathe out the tension.

While much of that sounds like Buddhist breathing meditation, several elements recall a Western Pagan earthing ritual (Starhawk, 2004) and other aspects echo the practice of ‘grounding into being here’ from Whole Body Focusing. All of it sits beautifully within certain strands of ecopsychology (e.g. Bill Plotkin and David Abram). Have these approaches appropriated Aboriginal practice? I very much doubt it. Although there has been a lot of influence on Western Paganism and ecopsychology from indigenous wisdom, I think it’s likely that people across the planet have learnt this kind of deep listening simply by virtue of being embodied and aware.